feign-death
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Deathrattle in Hearthstone's Goblins vs Gnomes
The Deathrattle mechanic was a major focus of Hearthstone's Naxxramas adventure pack. While it isn't the central theme of Goblins vs Gnomes, Blizzard's latest look at the upcoming expansion makes it clear there may yet be strong synergy with Deathrattle cards. The expansion preview highlights three cards in particular: Feign Death Trigger all Deathrattles on your minions. Lil' Exorcist Taunt. Battlecry: Gain +1/+1 for each enemy Deathrattle minion. Scarlet Purifier Battlecry: Deal 2 damage to all minions with Deathrattle. Feign Death (a Hunter card, naturally) has the potential to be extremely powerful -- not only with Naxxramas cards, but also with the Hunter's own Savannah Highmane, which is already a powerhouse unto itself. Savannah Highmane on the field with Baron Rivendare followed by Feign Death would result in a full board of minions. Lil' Exorcist and Scarlet Purifier seem more of a reaction to Naxxramas, a small balance to some of the adventure pack's more powerful cards, though your Scarlet Purifier triggering an opponent's Nerubian Egg might be bad news.
The OverAchiever: Glory of the Hero, Continued
No one's kiling any folk here today, on account of we got a really tight schedule. -- Mal, "Trash." Seemed to have some good luck with a previous Firefly quote, so why not? We're all set in Ahn'kahet, so let's pop over to Azjol-Nerub and lay waste to some bosses there.AZJOL-NERUBEvery achievement here is, in one way or another, a DPS race. If you've had difficulty with previous achievements in that vein or your DPS is still gearing up, you'll probably want to steer clear of Azjol for a while.Watch Him DieThis is one of the few achievements in the game most efficiently done from a kamikaze perspective (Sarth-10 3D is the most notable of the other picks). Early attempts at this with two tanks, two DPS, and one healer failed miserably, mostly due to the combination of poisons, a Priest healer, and Watcher Narjil's Blinding Webs ability. I'll admit I tried that before anything good dropped from Naxx, so it may just have been a gear issue at the time, but:a). If you have very good DPS, and:b). If you're willing to suffer a repair bill -- you can probably get this achievement in one or two tries without worrying about keeping all three Watchers tanked, bringing an off-tank, or risking a DPS having to kite all three to the entrance.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Hunter
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the twenty-fifth in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself. The Hunter is probably the oldest class in World of Warcraft. Before anyone in Azeroth took up an axe or sword, or learned anything of how to cast spells -- even before they learned to write -- they had to hunt for food. If they were like early Earth societies, the people of many nomadic groups would have relied on their hunters to bring in the meat they needed, as well as to protect the community from enemies. Back then, there would have been no such thing as fancy armor or complicated magical weapons. The relationship of a fighter to nature was just as important as the weapons he carried, if not more so.Modern hunters in World of Warcraft come from the ancient tradition of those who learned to keep themselves and their families alive by living in harmony with nature. They learned the essential mysteries of survival in the wilderness, killing animals with stealth and primitive weapons, trapping them, and eventually turning predators and prey alike into friends and servants. As time went by, those fighters who took up the path of the druid would learn to become nature itself; shamans would learn to call upon it; warriors and rogues would make battle their art, each in their own way. But hunters remained at that pivotal point between sentient races and the natural world -- they are connected to nature, but not manifestations of it; they work together with nature, but they do not worship it or call upon its spirits; they fight their enemies with the utmost passion, but they do it with the tools that hearken back to the dawn of civilization.
Forum post of the day: Best LOL moment in "Wrath"
Wrath is an odd mix. It's unquestionably darker in tone than both classic WoW and Burning Crusade, but it's not hard to find funny bits and pieces scattered around. Därkseid of Deathwing, after having a disgusted murloc refuse to be rescued by him ("Ewwww, orc!") during a quest in the Borean Tundra, started a thread dedicated to peoples' favorite humorous moments so far in Wrath. All the normal world PvP events can be found here (aggroing a Storm Giant while being attacked and Feigning Death onto your enemy? Check!) but you'll also find a growing catalogue of memorable quest text and great NPC dialogue, like Akini's entry on this page.For my money it's tough to exceed the tongue-in-cheek commentary you'll find in the books scattered around Acherus as you start a career as a Death Knight, including the one pictured above. Some of them are actually serious and give accounts of the Scourge's spying into the preparations made by the Horde and the Alliance for an assault on Northrend. Some of them, like The Death Knights of Acherus, are just hilarious, namely the entry concerning one "Harmony" whose period of service turned out to be extremely brief: "The name of this death knight was found in violation of common Scourge decency. Struck down by the Lich King." Well, Arthas, in such matters I defer to your excellent judgment.
Misdirection gets a shorter cooldown in Wrath
Since the addiiton of Tricks of the Trade to the Rogue repertoire in the Wrath of the Lich King Beta, Hunters have felt a little slighted. Not only did Rogues get Misdirection, a somewhat defining Hunter ability in PvE, they got Misdirection on a much shorter cooldown that also augmented the tank's damage for even more threat. Koraa brought good news late last night, mentioning that Misdirection's cooldown will be lowered to 30 seconds (down from 2 minutes) to match the cooldown of Tricks of the Trade. While Misdirection still doesn't have any secondary effects like Tricks does, you have to consider the fact that it can be used at range which is a pretty big deal. While the abilities have similar effects, they'll be used for wholly different things. It's a threat management tool for Rogues, whereas it's a pulling ability for Hunters. The two abilities fill different roles despite their similarities. Hunter threat tends to have some pretty wild spikes sometimes, but I think they have all the threat management they need. Feign Death is on a 30 second cooldown, and the Rogue threat wipe is at 3 minutes.
Scattered Shots: How do you make sense of all the beta hunter changes?
Is the tauren above about to cut off his own head -- or lunge forward to attack? Perhaps he's just feeling confused about upcoming changes to hunters? Would you, too, like to know just what's going to happen to your class? Well, you can rest easy now, because Scattered Shots has all the answers to your most urgent questions.The short answer is: You don't; at the moment there is no making sense of all the Wrath hunter changes. We find ourselves at the mid-point of Blizzard's mysterious scheme for hunters, right in-between significant changes already in-progress and vague changes which they've promised or the future. We remain uncertain about which ones are going to make it live, which will be changed again, and which will be removed or added later on. Any analysis we do right now (and indeed much of the analysis we've already done) may or may not be completely out of date in a matter of days or weeks, and if your head hurts from all the ups and downs of turbulent beta-zone theorycrafting, rest assured that Scattered Shots feels your pain.The long answer is: Even though the jigsaw puzzle isn't complete, it's still a pretty neat picture to look at. Today isn't the day for point-for-point talent analyses plus spreadsheets of sting/shot-damage coefficients -- what a headache that would be. No, today is an opportunity to stand back and look at how all this is beginning to fit together, to see how the path our class is trekking through the wilderness of beta-testing ambiguity solves some of our long-standing problems, gives us more of what makes hunters great, and leaves us with several crucial questions mysteriously unanswered.What follows, ladies and gentauren, are the X-files of hunter beta mysteries, a fuzzy look through the crystal ball into the future of our class, the thrilling buildup to the surprising twist that comes just before the epic climax of the Hunter Saga season finale and leaves you hanging on the edge of your seat, biting on the tip of your fingernails, and gasping for air in the thrall of cliffhanger suspense.
Scattered Shots: Do Hunters need Camouflage?
Hunt much? Got a pet? Scattered Shots is the feature you turn to when you've gotta have your weekly fix of hunter information, and you've just gotta have it every Thursday afternoon without fail. Those who mine the very depths of the Wrath of the Lich King alpha client have discovered a possible new hunter ability called Camouflage, which, if it goes live, could add an entirely new dimension to the hunter class. Its current form is kind of like a combination Vanish and Cloak of Shadows, in that, once every 5 minutes, it saves you from all debuffs currently destroying you in one way or another, and it puts you in "improved invisibility" (not actual stealth like a rogue has). There's no mention of any time limit, except that it will break when you deal damage.There are a number of implications this ability could have for hunters if it actually ends up on our action bars. For one, it would be quite different from a mage's Invisibility spell, which usually only allows them to see other invisible targets and only lasts for a short time. If Camouflage were to break upon dealing damage then we'd have to be able to see our targets, right? Likely we'd be able to move around and stalk them too. Also, it would not break when you start to cast a shot (such as Aimed Shot), or even if that shot were to miss -- only if it hits its mark. It could be the perfect companion to good damage openers on unsuspecting targets.If this goes live, Hunters are going to become snipers on top of everything else we are, which is super cool.
Scattered Shots: Leveling 20-30
Scattered Shots = hunter stuff Two weeks ago we covered some of the new abilities you get from levels 10 to 20 while you progress as a hunter, as well as how to use them to keep your skills sharp. The journey from 20 to 30 is a bit less topsy-turvy. At level 20, of course, you get to start playing with Aspect of the Cheetah and Freezing Trap, which can be a lot of fun, but other than that the new skills you get don't totally change the way you play until you get to level 30 and learn Feign Death. Nonetheless, they deserve a mention.If you're following the Beast Mastery talent path I laid out last week, then reaching level 20 doesn't give you any super-exciting new abilities either. Your pet will be able to run a bit faster, and will start doing more damage. Once you get the hang of using your Freezing Trap for crowd control, it's pretty much just a straight shot till you reach 30. It may feel a little boring sometimes, but it's really better than a lot of classes have it -- often many classes feel that the 20s are the levels at which the going seems roughest and the class seems weakest because it still lacks a major portion of its abilities. For hunters, it's just more of the same stuff we've been doing up till now.
Scattered Shots: Addons for shot timing, threat tracking, and pet training
Last week, Scattered Shots hit the bull's eye on which professions are best for a hunter. Today, we take aim at some interface problems hunters have, and the addons we can use to eliminate them.A user interface is an ever-evolving work of art. You can use it one way for a long time and then suddenly find one simple addon that lets you change everything and make it much better. Especially with all the problems that show up every patch, I've begun to look at my interface as a constant work in progress. As such, I'm usually in a constant state of getting rid of old addons, enjoying the ones I use now, and looking for new ones that might help me even more in the future. Every choice of what to put in or what to take out is a conscious decision about what will help make my game play smoother, more successful, and more visually interesting. As hunters, there are a number of needs that we have which other classes don't have - and special hunter addons are there to help in many of those cases, while in other situations, one of the more generalized addons might fit our needs best. Today I'll cover three of the most glaring interface problems for hunters and show you how I deal with them at the moment. In the comments section, feel free to share your own different interface issues, as well as your own solutions, for the benefit of our readers. Keep in mind that a user interface is an extremely subjective thing, and one solution may not work for everyone. Nonetheless, often times just sharing your idea will inspire someone else to vary it a little and make their own thing out of it, which is even better.
Scattered Shots: Beloved complexity
This week on Scattered Shots, David provides a break in the rushing waves of Patch 2.4 news to wax philosophical about his love of being a hunter. To be perfectly honest, he hasn't had time to even try out the new patch yet, but he's really looking forward to waxing on and off about the patch at some point as well.They say that being a hunter is WoW on easy mode, but in reality, the "easy mode" style of hunting is only the beginning of what a hunter can do. Sadly many hunters never really arise out of that stage - easy hunting can become like a rut in which one may not even realize that there is another way to do things. A player can rise out of this rut, however, either through an enterprising nature, or through acquaintance with a good hunter role-model. However one rises to it, the opportunity is there for hunters to do all kinds of things amazing things, mostly at the same time. In fact, you could say that a fundamental mechanic of the hunter class, probably the mechanic I love most in the entire game, is that of controlling multiple characters at once: the hunter and the pet. You have the most control over your hunter character, obviously, and the pet functions as something like a yo-yo which is attached to the hunter. You can point the pet in the direction of an enemy to attack, or you can recall it to wherever you are, but you can't tell it, for instance, to kite an enemy around in circles in the same way you yourself could.The limitations inherent in the abilities of the hunter and the pet, as well as the synergy between them, reminds me a bit of chess. Managing both the pet and the hunter to greatest effectiveness in different situations means you have to keep more than one thing in mind at all times. When you play most other classes, you can just pay attention to them and what they're doing, but being a good hunter requires you to be more aware of what's going on around you, just like chess requires you to keep track of the whole board, not just the little portion of it where the most action is happening.
Scattered Shots: Threat management
Last week David discussed finding and training your pet. This is a great time to start practicing threat management. When you attack a target in a group, your target will be threatened to varying degrees by everyone in the group. This becomes really important later in your career, when you will more often be facing targets in instances, or larger targets which require a full group to kill. Take advantage of the early levels of Hunter to practice threat management, and bring more to those groups than they might be expecting.Most classes have to group with someone before they ever have a chance to think about, much less practice, threat management. But we have a built in tank: our pet. We can practice this as clumsily as we need to, dying as often as we have to, all without an audience to mock us. Your pet'll never mock you. He's your best friend! Just don't ask what he tells the other pets when you're not listening.I'll be discussing "threat," also known as "aggro" or "hate" depending on the group. All of these words refer to one thing: how mad the target is at you and all your allies. Lots of things can cause threat to rise, such as standing within a mob's range, smacking a mob with a gigantic slab of marble, or even healing a party member who is in the process of doing either of those things. Lots of things can also cause threat to drop, such as being feared, being polymorphed, or being killed. Understanding a little about how to manage your own threat will help you prevent that last option from happening to you or your party members.
Animations to die for
I was chatting with a friend the other day (shut up! I do too have friends!) and we were playing reference poker -- you know, someone makes a comment referring to some aspect of pop culture, and the other person replies in kind. She said ' ... you are eaten by a grue.' I made the obligatory Zork return reference and we moved on, but the bit about being eaten stayed with me for some reason. That night, I was running around in WoW and realized that nobody in Azeroth is eaten by anything.Why can't we have encounter-specific death animations? I, for one, would love a chance to be messily devoured by a Sludge Beast! I can imagine the horrific wounds as it slid over me, eating away at my flesh until only bones remained. A much more affecting experience than merely swooning and dropping dead, as though nothing more mortal than narcolepsy had occurred. Or how about a set of pre-built death animations, available at the touch of a key? Everything from 'clutching at your heart: myocardial infarction', to 'going white as a sheet and dropping dead from fright', to 'Scanners cranial explosion'. In fact, wouldn't this make pulling off the ol' 'Feign Death' trick a lot more fun? I'm telling you, it's the little things in life that make existence bearable. Let's see more creativity with our dying moments, developers! Believe me, you stand to ... make a killing. Hahaha! Oh, I slay me.
Boy attacked by moose "feigns death," thanks WoW
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Boy_Attacked_By_Moose_Feigns_Death_Thanks_WoW'; A Norwegian news site is reporting that a young boy and his sister were attacked by a moose (same thing happened to my sister once), and the boy reportedly "taunted' the moose away from his sister, and then feigned death, causing the moose to lose aggro and leave. "Just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft," the boy is reportedly quoted as saying.Cynic that I am, I find it hard believing any of this is true at all-- maybe one of our Norwegian readers (and I know we have them, because I met two at BlizzCon) can let us know whether "Nettavisen" is to be trusted as a source or not. But even if it is true, I'm just as hesitant to jump to praise WoW for supposedly helping as I am to condemn it for supposedly hurting.Still, I'm glad the kid came out of it OK, and if WoW is to thank, all the better. Now if only he'd been able to control his DPS in the first place, he'd never have aggroed at all.[Via TN]
Hunters no longer have FD Drink in 2.3: Bug fix or nerf?
There is a new uproar on the forums, this time from Hunters -- petitions, titles in all caps, threads being moderated, etc. What are they all upset about? It seems an important item was left off of the Patch 2.3 notes: Fixed a bug in which Hunters were able to disengage from combat using Feign Death during boss encounters. Nethaera explains that this should only affect Hunters during boss fights and not when fighting trash mobs.The Hunters are upset because they were not just using Feign Death to drop aggro during boss fights, they were also restoring mana by drinking.It has been suggested that this was actually nerfed because not only could you drink during a boss fight, you could also change gear. Nethaera agrees that this functionality was not intended, but still maintains this is a bug fix and not a nerf.
Breakfast Topic: Abilities you'd like to see in the Warcraft movie
I was recently playing my hunter in a situation where I could not use my pet because I had to use a special item to mind-control a demon in the Netherstorm, and apparently having a pet and mind-controlling at the same time isn't allowed in the game mechanics. As a beast-mastery hunter, I'm pretty weak without my pet, so I had to use Feign Death a lot to get into position next to the demon. Suddenly I imagined my character as a star in the Warcraft movie, feigning death left and right, and laughing at the demons who fell for it every time.In a movie, certainly, it couldn't be so simple. The plausibility of the plot would require the monsters to figure out something was fishy when the hunter got up from apparent death the first time. Still, I thought if the ability was used once or twice in particularly appropriate moments, it could be really funny and also make the fans go wild, because they would recognize the game mechanics making a cameo in the film. Imagine: the hunter character in the movie is separated from his pet, surrounded by monsters, shot by an arrow and appears to die, only to be fine later on when his friends come to pick up his dead body. Then maybe towards the end, the bad guy feigns death too, and tricks the heroes with their own trick.What other in-game abilities would it make you jump with glee to see get a cameo in the movie? What place do you think it would take in the story? The first abilities that come to my mind are Polymorph, Vanish, and a paladin's bubble shield -- anything with a strong visual impact that could play a significant part on the story.
Minstrel's Feign Death getting a revamp in Book 11
Minstrels were thrilled to see the LotRO devs had chosen their class as one of the two getting a revamp in the Book 11 patch currently on the Preview Server. But then one of them noticed that the coveted Feign Death skill had it's cooldown timer doubled in length.Fortunately, the Turbine devs had something special in mind for the skill. They have removed the resist chance from the skill check. Feign Death will now always work. To compensate for this enormous buff to the skill, they doubled the cooldown timer and made it so it won't drop the Minstrel out of combat. So no rezzing others during combat.Most players were glad to exchange a longer timer for a no-fail get-out-of-jail-free de-aggro card. Considering the devs are removing one panic button from the Guardian class, it's interesting that they have given another one to the Minstrels.The devs went on to clarify that while using this skill, Minstrels will be untargettable and invulnerable. It does not, however, shed aggro in a group situation. Someone in the group needs to taunt or aggro the monsters that were beating on the healer or he is going to stay on the top of the hate list when he drops the skill.However, for solo play, using this skill will cause all monsters will run back to their normal patrol paths and leave the Minstrel alone. In group play, the Minstrel can use this ability as wipe insurance to help the party recover quicker.It remains to be seen what creative uses the players will make of this skill. I'm willing to bet the rent someone is going to figure out a tactic or two the devs didn't consider.
